The Candace Complex
by Secret Agent G
Summary: Phineas and Ferb try to discover why Candace gets so distressed all the time and/or psychotic. Meanwhile, Doofenshmirtz creates a Cheat-Inator to win an Inator Raffle Contest, which Perry must of course prevent.
1. Bungees and Busting

**Author's note: Behold, my newest creation: The Candace Complex!**

**Phineas and Ferb wonder what makes Candace so stressed out, so they try to find the source of it and put a stop to it. What they don't know is that she's stressed out about _them. _Meanwhile, Doofenshmirtz tries to win an Inator Raffle Contest with his own creation- the Cheat-Inator! Can Perry stop him before he...uh, cheats.**

**What happened to when things were _really _evil?**

* * *

><p>It was a beautiful summer's morning in Danville, and Phineas and Ferb were making sure to take advantage of it. They were out in the backyard, testing their new mini bungee cords in the tree. Each boy was wearing their helmet-head system, a harness that fastened them securely to the bungee cord, and in Phineas' case, an exhilarated grin.<p>

"Woo-hoo!" he yelled as he shot back up to the top branches of the tree. "This is great!"

Bouncing beside him, Ferb merely gave a shaky thumbs-up to show his approval.

Meanwhile, beneath the shade that the tree provided, Perry watched them descend from the tree, then bounce back up just as quickly as they had come down. He wasn't worried at all for their safety- they had done far more dangerous things than this. However, he was concerned for Candace's sanity over the matter. The boys' sister was inside, shouting into the phone about 'dangerous low-elevation activities' and how Mom needed to come home right that minute (even though she had left for the store mere minutes ago). However, judging by her increasingly hysterical responses, Mom didn't seem to be complying. Eventually, she shouted, "Fine, you don't believe me? I'll show you as soon as you get home! No, better yet…I'll get them on the phone!"

And she dashed out to the backyard, phone and all. However, she had neglected to notice that she wasn't talking into her cell phone- and the living room phone had a cord and plug. As she reached the tree, she held up the phone triumphantly.

"Boys, say hi to Mom for me!" she said, giggling psychotically. Perry surreptitiously scooted farther away from her, just to be safe…you never knew when Candace's 'issues' were going to act up, even when she was acting totally normal.

Phineas and Ferb bounced down from the tree and glanced at the phone. "Candace," said Phineas before he could bounce back, "why'd you bring the living room phone out here?"

As they bounced back up, Candace adopted a smoother tone. "Oh, just so I can finally bust you…now TALK." And she thrust the phone upwards once more.

"You do know it's unplugged," said Ferb placidly as they descended again.

Candace's eyes widened. She retracted the phone and stared at it in horror. The power was completely dead, and as she glanced behind herself, she could see the entire phone set laying in the grass behind her, power cord and all. Her mouth dropped open.

"NO!" she shouted frantically, scrambling to scoop up the phone's various pieces and drag them back inside, the cord whipping away like a cat's toy. Perry eyed it for a moment, then gave up. Chasing power cords _so_ wasn't his thing.

"Hmm," said Phineas, descending once more. "That was odd."

Just then, at the lowest point of their jump, the cords snapped, and the boys fell lightly onto a pile of pillows that they had set strategically beneath the tree.

"Oomph!" cried Phineas as he fell, embedding his large, pointy nose into one of the pillows and narrowly missing Perry, who had settled on one of the outlying pillows.

"Well," said Phineas in a nasally voice, as the pillow was now impaled on his nose, "It's a good thing we put these here. I guess Candace was right…we should be more careful."

Ferb merely raised his hand in a thumbs up from the mass of pillows he had landed in.

After Phineas had removed the pillow from his nose and Ferb had put the remaining cushions away, the boys settled peacefully beneath the tree again.

Phineas sighed. "Half a morning's work gone to waste." Then he pulled out his wristwatch to check the time and smiled. "But we've still got a lot of daylight ahead!"

Ferb nodded in reply and pulled Perry onto his lap, where he yawned and fell asleep. Presently, he was snoring softly and smiling as he slept, which made Phineas laugh. Perry's sleeping habits never failed to amuse him.

"Perry's so cute, isn't he, Ferb?" he said happily, settling on his elbows in the grass to get a better look at his snoozing pet. Ferb nodded and scratched Perry's cheek gently.

Phineas smiled and closed his eyes, slowing his breathing to match Perry's. Ferb copied him and leaned back against the tree serenely. To complete the moment, Perry began to purr in his sleep. For a few precious moments, it seemed as if the world was at peace.

Then the back door flew open with a loud screeching noise and Candace rushed out into the backyard, toting a video camera and giggling psychotically again. At the sound of the screeching door, Perry's eyes flew open and his purring stopped abruptly. The boys' breathing patterns were broken, and their eyes snapped open as well. Perry made an aggravated chirping noise and stalked off of Ferb's lap, shooting what might have been interpreted as a sulky glare at Candace. He then made a wide circle around her and headed back inside with a miffed air. Phineas and Ferb looked slightly downhearted at this, but Candace didn't notice a thing. Instead, she saw that the bungee cords were gone, the large, suspicious pile of pillows she had noticed had disappeared, and the boys were merely relaxing under the tree- albeit with a disappointed air. Of course, this did nothing to improve her mood. Rather, it seemed only to further distress her.

"NOOOO!" she shouted in defeat, sinking to her knees in the grass and dropping the camera. Then she covered her face and sobbed melodramatically.

Phineas watched her for a moment with a wide-eyed stare, then moved forward to comfort her hesitantly. "Um, it's okay, Candace…"

"B-but the bungee cords…" she sobbed as Phineas patted her back. "A-and I saw…"

"Candace, we didn't make them strong enough," Phineas explained. "So they snapped, and we had to throw them out. It's a good thing the pillows were there, eh, Ferb?"

Ferb nodded in agreement, massaging his nose.

Suddenly, Candace's sobs subsided. She stared up at Phineas, a smile starting to stretch across her face again. "Wait. You threw them out?"

"Well, yeah…" said Phineas slowly, not getting her point.

"Are they still in the trash?" Candace pressed eagerly.

"Oh, no," said Phineas, smiling and waving a hand dismissively. "I guess that was the wrong choice of words…we donated them to a local bungee-jumping recycling center. I hope they can put them to a good use."

Candace's face fell. She sighed dramatically, and stood to leave. "I'll just…go."

And she did, with a slumped walk and a despondent air. Phineas and Ferb just watched her go, not comprehending the source of her misery.

"Well," stated Phineas plainly. "I guess we should get back to our daily doings."

Ferb gave him a questioning glance. Phineas sighed.

"Yeah, I guess you're right," he conceded. "We haven't got any doings yet. We've just been relaxing with Perry and wondering why Candace is so miserable…hey!" he suddenly perked up. "Ferb, I think I know what we're gonna do today!"

Then something else occurred to him. "Hey, Ferb, I know Perry's annoyed 'cause of Candace and all, but you don't think he's just off sulking, do you?"

Ferb shook his head.

"Nope, didn't think so," said Phineas. "I wonder where he _is_, then."

* * *

><p><strong>So that's chapter one! Perry and Doofenshmirtz will appear in the next one, and so will Phineas and Ferb's crazy plan. So stay tuned!<strong>


	2. Begging the Questionnaire

Meanwhile, in Phineas and Ferb's room, Perry was indeed off sulking. He was getting seriously annoyed with the way Candace treated him. She regarded him as 'smelly' and 'bland', shut him out of the house once (and only because he accidentally tripped her!), and now she interrupted one of his only free moments with the boys.

However, speaking of free moments, his were almost up. He checked his wristwatch and saw that it was a few minutes before the scheduled mission call- but today he was feeling impatient. Without waiting for the watch to beep, signaling his need to get down to the lair, he crept up onto Ferb's bed surreptitiously and pulled a book off of his shelf. The book shelf opened up and the bed slid out into the center of the room, revealing a chute behind the bed- and a few fallen books, which Perry set back on the shelves hurriedly before jumping into the lair entrance. Behind him, the bed-entrance sealed itself up immediately. For a moment, all was still- and then a book fell off the shelf.

A few minutes later in the lair, Perry had just arrived via slide- a very squeaky slide. As he took his seat in front of the telescreen, Perry wondered when the slide waxing guy was going to return from vacation- if he ever did at all. That guy had been gone as long as Perry had been in the Agency, it seemed. Just then, Perry's watch beeped loudly, and Major Monogram's face appeared on the face of the watch, looking serious as usual.

"Agent P, it's time to report to the- oh," he stopped when he noticed that Perry was already in the lair. "You're already there…uh, just a second. Carl!"

"Hold on, sir," called Carl's high, nasally voice from off-screen. Perry waited for a moment, in which there sounded several beeping noises from the watch. Then, the image transferred from the watch screen to the telescreen, signaling that Monogram was ready to give him his mission. Perry saluted crisply and turned the watch off.

"Good morning, Agent P," said Monogram, shuffling through a few papers as he spoke. "Okay, here's the scoop on Doofenshmirtz. He's going to an evil mixer today, and we think he's going to bring his newest invention with him. We need you to infiltrate that party and get some information on what's going on. Good luck, Agent P."

Perry nodded and dashed out of the chair, headed for his hovercraft. However, he stopped in his tracks halfway there and frowned. A flying, platypus-shaped car wasn't exactly low key. He would need something more…surreptitious.

And after a few minutes of thought, he found just the thing.

Back in the backyard, Phineas and Ferb were hard at work on Ferb's laptop.

"All right, I think we're done," Phineas announced in satisfaction. "This questionnaire should help us find out why Candace is so stressed out today. It addresses all the preconceived issues, and by the style of her handwriting, we can analyze just how stressed out she is. Then we can figure out how to calm her down again!"

Ferb responded by pressing a button on the computer which began to shake for a moment. Then the questionnaire was fed out of a printer at the bottom of the keyboard. Ferb picked it up, checked to see whether it had printed right, and gave the thumbs up.

"Excellent!" said Phineas happily. "All we have to do is give it to Candace."

If only he knew just how hard that would be.

A few moments later, he and Ferb had gone up to Candace's room, whose door was ajar just a crack. Inside, Candace could be seen on her bed, looking through a scrapbook with pictures of Jeremy in it. However, it didn't seem to be cheering her up. She still looked rather distressed, and was muttering to herself angrily.

"Not even two o' clock, and _my _activity for the day is over," she muttered. "When will they learn to do normal things, like playing in the mud, or doing video games, or-"

"Making stress questionnaires?"

Candace perked up at the sound of Phineas' voice, then glared at them from where they stood in the doorway, Phineas looking happy as always and Ferb holding a sheet of paper.

"What are you doing in my room?" she shouted. Phineas didn't even flinch.

"Well, Ferb and I have been wondering why you're so stressed out," said Phineas, patting Ferb on the shoulder. "So we wrote this questionnaire that-"

"No, you know what? I don't care what you're doing here. I just want to be alone!" Candace fumed, leaving her bed to push the boys roughly out the door.

"Oh, but Candace-" started Phineas, holding up a finger, but Candace cut him off.

"No buts, just leave me alone!" she said vehemently, slamming the door in their wake. As soon as it closed, quick, hard footsteps could be heard from inside, and then the squeak of the bed springs. Phineas listened for a moment to the sound of flipping scrapbook pages, then turned to Ferb with a half disappointed, half determined expression.

"Well, Ferb," he said, "I don't think that worked. But we have to keep trying!"

Ferb nodded. He cared about Candace, too, and he didn't want to intrude on her privacy, but this was to be done for her own good. Phineas thought for a moment.

Finally, he snapped his fingers. "I've got it," he said.

Candace was just getting to the good part of her scrapbook (some especially funny pictures she had taken while Jeremy was on duty at Mr. Slushy Burger) when there was a scratching noise at her door. At first, she didn't mind at all, but it persisted for several minutes to the point that she could not possibly ignore it anymore. She growled psychotically and glanced around wildly for the source of the noise, which turned out to be a simple sheet of paper being squeezed under the door. Without even pausing to see what it was, she stomped over to the door, shoved the paper back out into the hallway, and seized a few books to block up the space underneath the door. Then she stormed back over to her bed, picked up the Jeremy scrapbook, and resumed her contemplation of it.

Outside in the hall, Phineas and Ferb looked disappointed to see that Candace had blocked up her door. Even more discouraging was the fact that Ferb now had a paper cut.

"Well, we can't stop there," said Phineas confidently. "Ferb, let's get a band aid for that paper cut. And after that…" suddenly, his face lit up. "I know what we should try next!"

Fifteen minutes later, Candace had reached one of her favorite parts of the scrapbook- the picture that Ferb had taken of her and Jeremy. Both their faces looked ridiculous, and while she wasn't pleased with her own appearance, she giggled every time she saw Jeremy's. However, her small moment of happiness died quickly when she remembered the day the picture had been taken- a disaster of a bust in which she had been split in two by her brothers' stupid machine. She growled angrily for a moment as she remembered the humiliation of trying and failing to show herself to Mom, in a sense.

However, in the midst of her recollections, there was a thudding noise outside her window and she whipped around to stare at it. There, perched just over the sill, was the top rung of a ladder, and being held up temptingly by Phineas' small hand was…

"Not that stupid paper again!" Candace shouted angrily.

"Come on, Candace!" came Phineas' little voice from below the window. "Pretty pl-"

"No pretty pleases!" said Candace furiously. "Go away!" and she roughly shoved her brother's hand out of the way to shut the window. Phineas wobbled on the ladder for a minute, then regained his balance and sighed.

"Another failed attempt," he murmured disappointedly. He climbed back down to stand next to Ferb, who had been holding the ladder steady for him. Ferb gave Phineas an inquisitorial glance, and his brother shook his head to signal that it hadn't worked. Together, they carried the ladder back to the garage and deposited it beside their dad's tools; if they didn't, he would wonder where it had gone.

After setting the ladder back in the garage, Phineas turned to Ferb with a determined face.

"Ferb, we've tried the frontal approach and the window approach," he stated. "Maybe we should try something a little more…I don't know…" he smiled slyly. "Unconventional."

Ferb gave one of those half-smiles that Phineas saw so often and nodded.

In Candace's room, the fifteen-year-old was busy trying to find another way to spend her time, aside from obsessing over the boys. Currently, she was flipping through a magazine, reading various articles that jumped out at her. As she pushed aside an ad for a new TV drama (Love and Various Explosions), she noticed an article whose title seized her attention immediately- _Obsessions and How to Get Over Them._

"I could totally use this," she muttered to herself, half sulky and half interested. But just as she was about to start reading it, there was a noise from her closet. Candace groaned. It was probably her clothes hangers falling off again; one of them had been doing that lately. However, when she went to inspect just which fallen hanger it was, she found something quite different- Phineas and Ferb, climbing up through a hole in her closet floor, carrying blowtorches and wearing welding masks. Candace shrieked, half in fright and half in exasperation. The boys recoiled a bit, and Phineas raised his welding mask to speak.

"Sorry, Candace," he said apologetically. "We didn't mean to scare you."

"Is this about your stupid question-thingy?" said Candace in a shaky but angry voice.

"Well, yes-" started Phineas, but Candace cut him off.

"Then fix that hole and go away!" she yelled, and she slammed the closet door on them. However, moments later, there was another noise, this time from the trash can. Suddenly, the can slid aside and another hole opened in the floor beneath it. Ferb popped out, holding the questionnaire up as if to ask whether she had changed her mind.

"NO!" shouted Candace furiously. "No questions! No brothers! No NOTHING!"

And she roughly pushed his head back through the hole, closed up the panel, and slid the trashcan back over it, putting a tall stack of books in it to hold it down.

"Oh, Candace, are you throwing those out?"

"AAAH!" Candace screamed loudly, whipping around to see her brothers standing in the middle of her room. She began to sputter in horror. "But you were just- and I saw- why, you!-" then she stopped abruptly and glared at them. "How do you keep getting in?"

Phineas and Ferb exchanged significant glances, then turned to Candace, suddenly stony-faced. "Sorry, Candace. Our sponsor would prefer to keep that under wraps."

Candace growled psychotically in response, causing Phineas to flinch a little.

"Uh, we just wanted to get a clear response about the questionnaire," he said, a little unnerved. Candace snorted angrily and seized the questionnaire he held.

"You want a clear response? I'll give you a clear response!" she fumed.

And without further ado, she ripped the paper to shreds promptly.

Phineas stared, wide eyed and seemingly shocked. Then he looked up at Ferb for help.

"A simple 'no' would have sufficed," stated Ferb plainly.

"NO!" yelled Candace forcefully, and the two boys dashed out of her room as fast as they could go, heading down the stairs with no regard to their mother's frequent statements about not running in the house. Suddenly, the room was silent.

Candace stared at her doorway for a moment, then stared at her feet. Maybe she had been a little hard on them. They were only her little brothers, after all, and if they cared to tell on her to Mom as she had attempted to do to them so many times, she knew that her mother wouldn't have anything nice to say about it. With a sigh, she concluded that an apology would be in order, and she headed down the hall to deliver it.


	3. The Properties of Stress

In the backyard, Phineas and Ferb had concluded that they would not be able to give Candace the questionnaire anytime soon. Instead, they had decided to try a new approach- analyzing her behavior based on their observations.

"Ferb, I think this technique will work much better than the previous one," said Phineas confidently. "All we have to do is stay out of Candace's way and observe her natural behavior. And this camera is the perfect way to document it. So, all set, Ferb?"

Ferb nodded in agreement and hoisted a large camera onto his shoulder.

"Excellent!" said Phineas happily. "But don't forget that Candace obviously doesn't want to talk to us right now, so we'll have to be sneaky."

"Hey, guys?"

Phineas gave a start at the sound of his sister's voice and turned to see her standing outside the back door, looking rather abashed. All the same, he looked slightly scared.

"Oh, hi, Candace," he said tentatively. "We're really sorry for invading your personal space. We just wanted to give you our questionnaire, but I guess we went overboard."

"You did," confirmed Candace coldly. Then she seemed to realize what she had said, and shook her head quickly. "No, no, that's not what I wanted to say!" she covered her face.

"It's okay, Candace," said Phineas, smiling comfortingly. "You can go ahead."

Candace looked up, still rather ashamed. "Well, what I wanted to tell you is-"

Suddenly, there was a loud beeping noise and everyone covered their ears. When it stopped, Phineas directed an inquiring gaze at Ferb, who had been messing with the settings on his camera. He grinned in embarrassment and indicated that the camera had made the noise by pointing at it. Phineas shrugged and smiled as if to say, "That's okay."

However, Candace didn't seem to share his sentiments. Instead of finishing her sentence, she spotted the camera and gasped. "What is that? What are you doing?"

"Oh, that," said Phineas, looking on edge for once. "Well…uh, we're not spying on you, right, Ferb? That's not what we're doing at all! Where did you even get that idea?"

Candace stared at her brother as he floundered, nervous for once in his life. Apparently, Phineas wasn't particularly good at being sneaky. She gave him a glare that would chill anyone's blood, except maybe Mom's. She was impervious to nearly everything.

"I didn't get the idea," she pointed out icily. "_You _did."

Phineas was silent for a moment. He looked to Ferb for help. Ferb just stared back.

"Uh…" started Phineas awkwardly. "We…felt like making home movies?"

"I knew it!" yelled Candace, suddenly infuriated again. "You're doing something! I don't know what, but it's _something! _And I'm so going to bust you for it." And without further ado, she dashed back inside, slamming the door behind her.

For a moment, everything was still. The boys looked slightly frightened, but there was still a note of determination in Phineas' voice as he turned to Ferb and said,

"Well, Ferb…did you get all that?"

Ferb gave the thumbs up.

The sun was shining brightly on Danville, but even more so on a busy highway, along which a small, sleek, blue and white car was driving. The car, smaller by far than the other vehicles and sporting a unique shape and color, was quite different than most other vehicles, and nearby drivers couldn't help but stare. However, even stranger than the car and attracting a considerable amount of attention himself was the driver, who just so happened to be Perry. He had decided to take the platypus car to the party, seeing as it could drive in without attracting much attention (or so he had thought), he could park it somewhere inconspicuous, and if he needed to make a quick getaway, it would come when he whistled for it. However, he hadn't anticipated this much traffic. It had taken him long enough to get out some clothes that he found appropriate for a party (a nice-looking suit, and of course his hat), even longer to get them on, and now this? At this rate, he would be late and Doofenshmirtz would start without him.

Finally, after what seemed like hours of driving, his GPS announced that he had arrived at the evil mixer, which looked like an ordinary club- aside from the fact that it had _EVIL CLUB _written in large, neon letters just above the door. Ignoring that, Perry pulled into the lot and parked in a faraway corner, as far as he could get from the rest of the cars. Then he hopped out and headed into the club, ready for anything.

That is, ready for anything _but _what he saw.

Inside the evil mixer, it seemed that a good number of the evil scientists present had never gotten over the seventies disco craze, as they were performing dances that Perry couldn't even recognize. A few of them were repeatedly bumping into each other (he couldn't tell whether it was a dance or they were just clumsy), and a few more were doing what he thought might have been the hustle (although they could have just been trying to get to the snack bar). He could have sworn he even saw Norm doing the robot, which he found ironic. Somewhere in the middle of the dance floor, Rodney was repeatedly pointing one finger up and down, to the wild cheers of other scientists. However, in all the confusion, flashing lights, and general mayhem (of both the dancing and evil kind), Doofenshmirtz was nowhere to be found. Eventually, Perry gave up manually searching for him and took out a device from his pocket- a tracker. In their last encounter, he had had the good fortune to accidentally stick a tracking device to Doofenshmirtz's shoe. At the time he had cursed the loss of a good tracker, which he was sure would be squashed, but if it hadn't been and Doofenshmirtz was wearing the same pair of shoes (and there was a good chance he was), then it would be a good thing. Sure enough, the tracker began to get a signal just then, not from Doofenshmirtz Evil Inc., but from somewhere near Perry. He smiled in satisfaction and began to follow it to its source, which turned out to be a back room. Slightly surprised that his nemesis wasn't joining in the festivities, Perry backed up to break the door down, but then stopped. That would draw too much attention. Instead, he reached up to turn the door handle, which wasn't locked. Perry flung the door open and leapt inside with a handspring, landing to assume a fighting pose.

Inside, Doofenshmirtz whipped around to face his nemesis. "Perry the Platypus?" he exclaimed in shock. Then he paused, passing a considering gaze over Perry. "Well. You look nice. You do know this isn't formal or anything, right?"

Perry relaxed his stance a bit, slightly taken aback. He hadn't considered the formal or informal aspects of this mission at all, but a compliment was a compliment.

"Hmm," Doofenshmirtz continued. "Well, anyway. Since you're all dressed up, let me show you to your table!" and with a wicked cackle, he pulled a remote out of his lab coat and pressed a button on it. Perry instinctively rolled to the side, which turned out to be a bad move. A large, round dining table fell from the ceiling, as he had generally expected, but instead of falling on the space where he was before, it fell on top of where he had just rolled to. Suddenly, he found himself trapped underneath a table with a large, heavy looking table cloth, weighted down with several dishes set strategically on its surface.

Doofenshmirtz laughed evilly at that, and even though Perry couldn't see him, he knew he was gloating. "Ha, got you that time, Perry the Platypus! I bet you didn't see that one coming, but I did!" he paused for a moment, as if rethinking his statement. "Which is kind of obvious, now that I think of it. But, y'know, whatever. I bet you're wondering what I'm doing at this evil mixer, huh?"

Under the table, Perry raised an eyebrow. How did he always guess these things?

"Well, I'll tell you," continued Doofenshmirtz jovially, and he began to pace around the room. "You see, at this evil party, they are holding a raffle contest. The prize, they say, is an Inator with a mystery purpose, which makes it especially valuable. Y'know, unless it's just something lame…" he paused to consider that. "Come to think of it, I guess it wouldn't be so valuable if all it did was peel potatoes or something…"

Just then, there came a skeptical sigh from underneath the table. Doofenshmirtz scowled.

"Well, you don't have to make fun!" he protested. "I haven't even told you my plan yet!"

Then he cleared his throat and continued. "So, as you probably guessed, I want to win this Inator. But there's a lot of people here, and you know evil scientists. They all entered the contest too. So, you may be wondering how exactly I intend to snatch victory away from them." He grinned, as if getting to the good part. "And the answer is, I plan to use my new Cheat-Inator to change the winning raffle numbers to whatever is on my ticket! Then, with the mystery Inator in my hands, I will finally rule the entire Tri-State Area!" And he took the opportunity to laugh evilly.

Underneath the table, Perry put one hand over his eyes wearily. Lately, these plans had been going steadily downhill, and this one was the worst yet.

Meanwhile at the Flynn-Fletcher house, Candace was watching TV in the living room, still trying to take her mind off the boys. Little did she know that Ferb was still filming her every move from one of the plants, disguised cleverly behind a cluster of leaves. Up in their room, Phineas was watching the feed from the camera on Ferb's laptop, making little notes of everything Candace did. As she reached for a nearby bag of potato chips, he raised an eyebrow and scribbled, _Eating comfort food- possible stress reducer? _However, at that moment, a bit of grass tickled Ferb's nose, and he sneezed loudly. The noise startled Candace, and she stared at the plant wildly.

When she noticed Ferb, she shouted, "You!" and dashed off to a different part of the house. Ferb merely hopped out of the plant and crept after her stealthily.

For the next few minutes, Candace ran around the house trying to avoid the boys, who were both on her trail by then. Eventually, she got tired of hiding behind the sofa, and she decided to take her bike out to the mall, where the boys watched her from various hiding places, such as in clothes racks and behind newspapers at benches (albeit with a camera sticking out from behind the paper). As was to be expected, Candace only became steadily frustrated with their attempts to document her day, and soon, she decided to hide from them in the ladies' room, where she knew they couldn't follow.

Later, when she was sure they must have left for refreshments or to use the restroom themselves, she snuck back out and dashed to her bike, pedaling home as fast as the vehicle could carry her. As she pulled into the driveway, she was sure she was safe.

Until she saw the boys sitting under the tree in the backyard and tapping on Ferb's laptop.

Resisting the urge to scream as she so often did, she sprinted into the house on silent feet, ran up to her quarters, and closed the door, window, and shades with an air of finality. Then, after searching the room for any signs of little brother activity, she pulled out her cell phone and began to dial Mom's number, punching the keys with a passionate fury.

"That does it," she fumed. "I'm so bound to bust my bungee-bouncing brothers!"

Nobody filmed Candace and got away with it…not without a little busting.

In the backyard, Phineas and Ferb were finished following Candace, as they had come to their own conclusions about her condition. Phineas was just explaining his theory to Ferb, who knew it all, but listened intently just the same.

"So, it seems our sister is suffering from a conundrum," said Phineas, pacing the length of the backyard and turning to pace back. "A conundrum derived from her desire to show Mom the things we do, and also Mom's unfortunate failure to notice. I mean, it's no wonder she wants to show Mom all the cool things we do. But it's just sad to think that she can never accomplish that goal." At this, his eyes gleamed. "Now, I think we could solve this problem if we created something so ultimately awesome that it _couldn't _go missing, and then had Candace show it to Mom. That would make everybody happy!"

Ferb nodded in agreement, watching part of their recording on the laptop. In the recording, Candace went charging past Mr. Slushy Burger, where Jeremy was on duty.

"Hey, Candace!" he called as she ran past, hardly even taking notice of him. The camera wobbled as it passed Jeremy's station, in hot pursuit of the rampant sister. Jeremy seemed to notice it just then. "Oh, hey, guys. What are you doing?"

Off screen, Phineas' innocent voice said, "Oh, we're just observing Candace's habits and- whoops, we've got to go. Quick, Ferb! She's getting too far ahead!"

And the camera quickly resumed its pursuit of the fleeing redhead, who had run into a clothes store for safety. Ferb sighed and turned the video off- he didn't like having to chase his sister all over. He looked up at Phineas, who had noticed his small indication of emotion. Phineas sighed, as if he knew what his brother was thinking.

"Yeah, I know," he said, in response to Ferb's expectant gaze. "But we could at least try to make her happy now…"

Ferb considered for a moment, then brought up some blueprints on his laptop.

Phineas grinned, although it might have been a half-hearted grin. "Good idea."

Just then, Candace appeared at the back window, having noticed that the boys had set the camera down and weren't trailing her anymore. Phineas noticed her and waved invitingly.

"Hi, Candace!" he said enthusiastically, all traces of uneasiness gone from his voice. "Come on out! You gotta see what we're doing."

Candace scowled and said something inaudible from inside. When neither of the boys replied, she bared her teeth as if growling and marched over to the back door. As she came out, she clicked shut the pink cell phone that the boys had become so accustomed to seeing daily. However, the call to Mom was over- and it didn't seem to have gone well.

"So what _are _you doing?" she demanded. "I need to know so I can bust you."

Phineas wasn't fazed. "Well, we're planning to build something so huge, so fantastic, so awesome, that when Mom sees it, she'll love it!"

"HA!" said Candace, grinning triumphantly. "When Mom sees this one, you're gonna be so-" then reality caught up with her. "Wait. Did you say, 'when Mom sees it'?"

"Yeah, I did," said Phineas, slightly confused. "Isn't that what you want?"

Candace was bewildered for a moment. "Well, yeah," she said. "But today…"

"Today what?" prompted Phineas, eager to hear what she had to say.

"Well, today I guess I just wanted not to have to deal with all that stress," she continued.

Now it was Phineas' turn to be bewildered. "Stress?" he queried. "What stress?"

Candace scowled again. "Stress! You know, how I act when you two do all your crazy stunts and Mom doesn't see them? You just drive me crazy with that!"

Phineas looked rather shocked at this. "We…we stress you out?"

"Heck, yeah!" said Candace passionately, throwing her arms in the air for effect. "You stress me out _day _and _night, week _after _week, project _after _project…_"

While she was ranting about this, Phineas' initial shock had worn off. Now, he just seemed to be rather upset and shamed. Having no one else to turn to, he sat stiffly and spoke to Ferb without looking at him directly.

"You know how we went overboard with the questionnaire?" he asked. Ferb nodded. "Well, I think maybe we went overboard with this, too…" said Phineas sadly.

Ferb didn't nod. He didn't need to. Instead, both brothers bowed their heads ashamedly.

"…and even on vacation, you had to pull some ridiculous stunt…" Candace continued fervently. However, she seemed to notice her brothers' silence and glanced down at them. "…Hey. What's up with you guys?"

Phineas looked up with Candace with eyes full of guilt. "_We _stress you out," he repeated, seemingly shell-shocked. "That wasn't in our list of possible causes…"

Candace seemed rather astonished herself. They actually felt _bad _about stressing her out? And they had never known about it before? This was certainly news to her.

"Well…" she said, bending down to face him, "you do tend to do some wacky stuff."

"We just thought it was cool," said Phineas, not making eye contact now.

"It is cool, I guess," said Candace, trying to make him feel better. "It's just, I usually want to show it to Mom…"

"And Mom never gets home in time to see it, we know," Phineas confirmed.

Candace looked slightly stunned. "You do? How would you know that?"

Phineas gave a wan smile. "Well, remember when we were following you around with a camera? We were filming everything you did so we could identify what it is that stresses you out. We thought we had it figured out…we thought it was the fact that Mom never gets to see anything we do. We called it the Candace Complex, named after you."

Candace almost replied, then let her mouth hang open for a moment while she thought. "Ohhh…"

"Well, evidently, we didn't expect this," said Phineas. "So I guess we'll just stay out of your hair for today."

Candace thought for a moment. She could let them do it and then show Mom as fast as possible…but if she did and they did get busted, it wouldn't feel good. Now that she knew they weren't _trying _to drive her crazy, she wasn't so keen on getting them in trouble. Busting could wait for another day, she decided, however hard the decision was.

She knelt beside her brothers and smiled. "Hey, it's okay. You don't _always _drive me crazy…just sometimes. And I guess you could build something today, if you wanted."

Phineas looked up at her, a glimmer of hope sparkling in his eyes. "Really?"

Candace shrugged, feeling that one blown bust couldn't be that bad. "Yeah."

"It won't stress you out?"

"Nah, I'll just let it go," said Candace passively, trying to tell herself it wasn't important.

Phineas thought for a moment. He really didn't want to stress Candace out, but sometimes, you never knew with her…if they did do something, it would have to be stress-free. Something that maybe she could even approve of.

Suddenly, a brilliant idea materialized in his head. "Ferb," he started optimistically, "I know what else we're gonna do today!"


	4. Punches Over Punch

_Elsewhere, at a certain evil club…_

Back at the Evil Club, Doofenshmirtz was just getting his Inator set up to fire. At the moment, he was adjusting the settings distractedly, not paying attention to Perry or his trap at all. As far as he was concerned, this trap was completely inescapable.

This was a grave mistake.

Perry didn't like not being able to see what his nemesis was doing. It gave him no clues about when or where he'd have to escape, and it was downright irritating when Doofenshmirtz was doing something that he was obviously supposed to be watching. Finally, the torture got to him, and he decided it was high time he escaped.

Doofenshmirtz sat back in a nearby chair and smiled in satisfaction. "All right, it's all set!" he announced happily. Just then, there was a rustling noise from behind him, and he whirled around to check Perry's trap.

When he did, he saw the table exactly as it had been when he had dropped it on Perry- for a moment. Doofenshmirtz sighed in relief, then began to taunt his nemesis. "Ha, you can't possibly get out of this one, Perry the Platypus. You'd have to break the dishes, and guess who's paying for that!" He laughed briefly, then added, "Not me, that's for sure."

The next minute, the tablecloth was whipped out from underneath the dishes neatly like a magic trick, and there stood Perry underneath the table, wearing what could have been interpreted as a platypus' version of a smirk. Doofenshmirtz didn't even gasp this time.

"Okay, now you're just showing off," he said in irritation.

In response, Perry flipped the tablecloth away stylishly and struck a fighting pose.

Doofenshmirtz scowled. "Oh, it's on now!"

Then Perry dive-rolled forward and used the momentum to spring upward and tackle Doofenshmirtz in the chest, effectively knocking him over. Doofenshmirtz yelped as he fell, but managed to grab Perry's arms as they hit the ground. He rolled over, pinning his assailant against the ground and laughing briefly before Perry kicked his chin painfully and escaped. As Perry got to his feet, the mad scientist began to make a dash for the Cheat-Inator, scrambling past the various folded chairs and other such things in the back room to reach it. However, Perry was faster. He leapt on top of one chair, then began to hop along the tops of them like stepping stones, effectively outrunning Doofenshmirtz before he could reach his creation. Then he launched a flying side kick at his nemesis' head. Instead, Doofenshmirtz lurched to the side to avoid him and Perry landed on top of his head, scrambling to get a hold on something before he could slip off. Suddenly unable to see, Doofenshmirtz accidentally stumbled out of the back room that he had been hiding in and wandered out to the dance floor, still trying to pry Perry off of his head. The evil scientists parted to let them through, bewildered by the sight before them. Eventually, Perry looked up and noticed where he was, and he froze. Doofenshmirtz used his sudden pause as an opportunity to tug at his nemesis' feet and pull him off.

"Would you just GET DOWN!" he shouted loudly as Perry fell to the floor with a loud _thump_.Then he noticed that he was no longer in the back room- and everyone was staring. For a few tense moments, everyone was silent.

Doofenshmirtz touched the tips of his fingers together uncomfortably. "Uh, I mean," he said in an awkward tone, "Let's…get down!"

There was silence for a moment more. Then the other scientists all cheered and resumed their dancing, the music started up in full force and volume, and suddenly the nemeses were caught up in the thick of the party again. For a moment, Doofenshmirtz seemed to be enjoying the music, starting to tap his foot to the beat, but then he noticed Perry weaving his way through the crowd towards him.

"Uh-oh," he muttered to himself. "Not good." And he ran off in the opposite direction, trying to make his way back to the back room so he could get to his Inator.

However, Perry was faster. He hopped onto one partygoer's head and seized the disco ball hanging from the ceiling of the club, then used it to swing through the crowd towards Doofenshmirtz, who shrieked in terror at the sight of the platypus flying straight at him. At the last second, he managed to duck, and Perry went sailing right over his head, his hat flying off in an unruly fashion. Not noticing this, Perry dive rolled as he landed and stood up, then whirled around to face his enemy, prepared for combat once more. The doctor looked up furtively, his hands covering his head in a defensive posture. Perry relaxed his stance and waited, not wanting to attack yet. He tapped his foot impatiently.

The mad scientist sighed, then stood up with a fatigued stance. "Oh, come on. All I want to do is win one little prize! Is that so bad?" he demanded.

In response, Perry narrowed his eyes and assumed a fighting stance again.

Doofenshmirtz wasn't fazed. "Okay, so apparently it is," he conceded. Perry performed a handspring that propelled him into the air, then came down hard on the doctor's foot. Doofenshmirtz yelped in pain and tried to kick at Perry, who rolled neatly out of the way and leapt up behind him, using his tail like a paddle to slap the back of Doofenshmirtz's head. Doofenshmirtz yelled in pain again and turned to face Perry. He tried to throw a punch at the secret agent, but Perry's reflexes kicked in and he caught it midway to his face. He then tried to launch his own punch at Doofenshmirtz, but he managed to catch it as well. For a moment, they were both still, having accidentally incapacitated each other's hands. Then Doofenshmirtz grinned and stepped forward quickly, in an attempt to step on Perry's foot. Perry mimicked the move by stepping backwards quickly. As he tried to tug his hand out of his nemesis' grasp, Doofenshmirtz put the other foot forward in another attempt to squash Perry, but the platypus was too quick. This time, he lifted his foot as Doofenshmirtz's came down and stepped on it instead, in a reversal of the intended motive. Doofenshmirtz grimaced but managed not to make any noise this time, and he shook his foot violently to try and get Perry's off. However, Perry proved to be too lightweight for such a thing, and rather than be shaken off, he was lifted entirely off the ground. For a moment, he hung there, swaying gently as Doofenshmirtz tried to figure out what had just happened. When he did, he quickly formed another plan and began to swing Perry in circles, faster and faster as he went. The partygoers around them began to clear a circle, still cheering happily as if they thought it was some kind complex dance. Perry now clung to his nemesis as tightly as he could, hoping that he would slow down enough for him to escape unscathed, but as he was only holding on to the fist he had tried to block earlier, his grip wasn't particularly tight.

Finally, Doofenshmirtz yelled gleefully, "Clear the runway!" and let go of Perry. The platypus shot through the crowd, who shrieked and cleared a path as Doofenshmirtz had instructed. Trying desperately to get his bearings, Perry tucked his head and covered it defensively with his arms, then rolled into a ball. He hit the floor with a soft thump, rolled a short ways, and finally fell over, utterly exhausted and breathing heavily.

Doofenshmirtz pumped his fist in the air and shouted triumphantly, "Yes!"

For a moment, there was silence. The other evil scientists all gave Doofenshmirtz funny looks, as if they didn't quite understand. Doofenshmirtz seemed to shrink a bit under the pressure, and he quickly backed out of the crowd.

Suddenly, the crowd burst into applause and wild cheers, shouting various praises and lifting Perry into the air. Perry, disoriented and dizzy, chattered loudly in confusion.

"That was the grooviest jive I've ever seen, man!" someone called from the crowd.

"No way, man, that had to be the hustle!" someone else shouted.

Perry gave a bewildered chirp. He had no idea what either of those were, but whatever it was, it was stopping him from chasing after Doofenshmirtz. However, by now, the mad scientist had vanished into the crowd and was nowhere to be seen. Perry tried to get down from where the mass of people had lifted him, but no one seemed to be cooperating. Eventually, he growled angrily, pulled out his grappling gun, and shot it at a faraway wall. The gun latched onto a light fixture, and Perry was tugged away forcefully, the last of the people managing to pull a bit of fur off of his tail as he went. When he reached the wall, Perry released the gun and dropped behind a nearby table for cover, breathing hard. As he rested, he mentally confirmed that he would _never _dance in public again- even if it wasn't supposed be a dance at all. Suddenly, he felt something touch his hand- his fedora, safe and sound, albeit laying on its side. He quickly took hold of the brim and set it back in its rightful place, wondering where it had been all that time. Behind him, the crowd began to express their confusion as to where their idol had gone. Gradually, talk resumed, and they began to dance and go about their business. Perry breathed a sigh of relief. Then he began to make his way around the room, sneaking in between chairs and under tables in an attempt to identify his nemesis' feet. This didn't go well, as half the evil scientists there all seemed to shop at Retro Pharmacist Limited. The search took several minutes, during which Perry couldn't find anything- except a crushed tracking device that someone had stepped on carelessly. So much for finding Doofenshmirtz that way.

At last, Perry conceded that Doofenshmirtz must have left the main room, probably to get back to his Inator. He quickly dashed to the back room, hopping over fallen snacks and ducking around people's feet in an attempt to get there before Doofenshmirtz could unleash his ridiculous scheme. However, when he flung the door open once more, the room was devoid of evil scientists, Inators, and even chairs, as if someone had taken them all out to the dance floor. Breathing heavily and trying to get his thoughts under control, Perry began to wrack his mind for anything that would point to Doofenshmirtz's location.

Where could he possibly have gone?

Meanwhile at the Flynn-Fletcher house, Phineas and Ferb were hard at work on a new project. They had told Candace to go inside and enjoy herself however she liked; they would be done soon, and she was sure to like it when they were. Candace was suspicious, but for their sakes, she tried to ignore the various sounds of what she assumed to be construction outside. It was only one day, she kept telling herself. It didn't matter.

At the moment, the boys were doing a very strange variety of things- taking various pairs of sunglasses on and off, mixing sunscreens to create their own super-blend, and cleaning off an old lawn chair from the garage. They even asked to use Mom's blender, which Candace agreed to- under her watchful supervision. To her confusion, they didn't even do anything out of the ordinary with it. Instead, they mixed a rainbow of fruits together, along with some carrots (for health, Phineas said), and a bit of yogurt for smoothness. When they finished that, they asked Candace to wait upstairs again.

"Well, Ferb," said Phineas proudly, surveying the result before him, "I think we're done!"

Back at the evil club, Doofenshmirtz had managed to wind his way through the throng surrounding Perry and his 'radical moves', and had returned to his Cheat-Inator. He was about to close the door to the back room when a thought struck him- this would be the first place that Perry the Platypus would think to look for him in. And if his nemesis found him in here, it was all over. So, as a sinister grin began to spread across his face, he wheeled the Inator out of the back room and back into the party, where the crowd was thankfully still making it hard to see or locate anyone; especially, he imagined, for a platypus of Perry's height. The monotreme was so short, Doofenshmirtz often wondered how he could even see anything without lifting the brim of his hat. But that was the least of his concerns now; what was important was that he get the Cheat-Inator to someplace safe, where he could fire it at wherever the winning raffle numbers were. As he tried to evade the partygoers' feet with the squeaky-wheeled device, he wondered briefly just where the numbers were…which hadn't occurred to him at all. Whoops.

Finally, he set the Inator to rest in an alcove off the side of the party, covering it with a plastic tablecloth quickly so it couldn't be seen. He then ducked behind it to find the power cord and began to search for an outlet. That alone took a few precious minutes, which worried him. The more time he wasted, the more likely it was that Perry the Platypus would find him, and that would only result in a huge explosion (more or less). Once he had found an outlet, it took even longer for the Inator to warm up (he cursed himself for not upgrading the systems like he knew he should have). First, the keypad had to blink with purple and green lights for effect. Then the screen had to light up with a logo that read, **Welcome! **with a pixelated smiley face (also for effect). Then the machine let out a loud humming noise, somewhat like a printer would, and began to shake back and forth slightly. Doofenshmirtz tapped one foot impatiently, waiting for the thing to warm up. At this rate, he would be too late and Perry the Platypus would find him.

Elsewhere, Perry was having no more luck finding Doofenshmirtz than his nemesis had when he was searching for an outlet. He had searched around everyone's feet, avoided being recognized by anyone by hiding under the snack table (and snacking on a cookie whilst there), and even tried showing Doofenshmirtz's file photo to a few people as a way of asking if they knew where he was. Eventually, the search had yielded nothing, and Perry was sick of hunting for someone who seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth. He took a seat at the edge of the party to rest his feet for a moment; they were aching from running so much, and there was a large amount of crumbs embedded in their soles. As he rubbed them furiously in an attempt to restore their usual, non-crumby texture, his ears began to pick up a sound he hadn't heard before. It didn't sound like party music, or talking, or anything else he'd heard at any party- it sounded like the noise a printer makes when it's warming up. Suddenly, he froze and stood stock-still, tuning out every other sound around him to focus on the humming noise. He smiled.

_Gotcha this time._

Without further pause, Perry leapt up out of his seat and dashed off, headed toward the source of the noise. He closed his eyes as he ran to further focus on the noise, using his acute senses of electroreception (standard issue to aquatic and semi-aquatic animals) to detect movement rather than seeing it. As he neared his destination, the humming sound became louder and louder. Soon, it was loud enough that he could almost pinpoint its location. Not even pausing to look at what was ahead of him, he instinctively dive rolled underneath one passerby's legs and stood, his eyes snapping open as he did so. Just as he had suspected, there stood Doofenshmirtz at a nearby table, waiting beside his Inator and looking quite shocked that Perry had found him so quickly.

"Perry the Platypus?" he exclaimed in a horror-struck voice. Then it changed to one of disapproval. "B-but I'm not ready yet! No fair, the Cheat-Inator's still warming up!"

Perry rolled his eyes. As if that mattered. Then he launched himself at Doofenshmirtz and kicked him in the chest, with enough force to knock a wall over (Perry had been known to do that from time to time). Doofenshmirtz had the breath knocked out of him, and he crashed to the floor painfully. Perry landed lightly on his chest and performed a neatly executed back flip, landing in a fighting stance to combat his enemy.

Doofenshmirtz scrambled to get up as quickly as possible, scowling at Perry. "Oh, it's on _again _now!" he snapped crossly. The two of them began to brawl, knocking over a few chairs in the process and completely ignoring the still-charging Cheat-Inator, which merely kept vibrating as if nothing had happened.

While the Cheat-Inator continued to warm up, the nemeses were still locked in combat. Doofenshmirtz was launching various punches at Perry, who avoided them all with ease. When the chance presented itself, he would dart in and deliver an attack of his own, to which Doofenshmirtz would reply by yelling loudly and trying further to attack his enemy. Eventually, he managed to land a kick on Perry's stomach, and the platypus was knocked backwards forcefully. As Doofenshmirtz cheered over his minor success, Perry flew quite a long way, eventually skidding to a halt underneath a table. For a moment, he laid still and tried to force himself to breathe again. Today just wasn't his day.

While Perry was recovering underneath the table, the Cheat-Inator had finally finished warming up, which it announced with a loud _ding!_ Doofenshmirtz perked up at the sound and grinned, directing a contemptuous laugh at the table Perry was underneath.

"Oh, look, Perry the Platypus!" he gloated. "The Inator's finally ready, and you're too late to stop it now!" he cackled evilly and began to make a dash back to the Cheat-Inator, completely forgetting about his nemesis. Perry poked his head out from underneath the tablecloth, having recovered by then. What he saw was not good; Doofenshmirtz had almost reached his machine, and he would surely reach it before Perry could catch up to him. However, he was faster than Doofenshmirtz in another way- thought.

Leaping out from under the table lightly, Perry hopped up on top of it and seized two chocolate-chip cookies. He then turned to face Doofenshmirtz, narrowed his eyes as he aimed the projectiles straight for his nemesis' knees, and threw them like ninja stars.

Doofenshmirtz had almost reached his Inator, and was already trying to think of where to fire it. Suddenly, he felt the edge of something thin collide with the backs of his knees, causing him to lose his footing and fall down. As he fell, he crashed into a partygoer who had just wandered past, causing them to drop the drink they had been carrying. The drink flew through the air, spilling punch as it went, and it spilled with a loud, predictable splash- right on the Cheat-Inator's control pad.

"NOOOO!" yelled Doofenshmirtz in anguish, trying to pry the unfortunate passerby off of his back. While he struggled unsuccessfully to get out from under his bewildered assailant, Perry used the opportunity to catch up with him. He began to sprint toward the Cheat-Inator, ready to disable it in whatever way he could. But before he could reach it, the machine let out a loud beep, and sparks began to fly off its surface. Perry skidded to a halt in front of the machine, then glanced back at Doofenshmirtz with a bewildered stare.

"Oh, now you've done it, Perry the Platypus!" Doofenshmirtz shouted vehemently. "Well, you didn't _literally _do it, but whatever. Now the self destruct's been activated!"

Perry's confused frown quickly turned to a sarcastic one. How many times had he safely dealt with self destruct buttons- or entirely ignored them- with no negative consequences? Other than Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated blowing up, of course.

Doofenshmirtz seemed to take note of his change in mood. "Oh, you think it's just an ordinary self destruct," he said warily, a note of panic in his tone. "Well, it's not. I guess I picked a bad time to upgrade the self destruct capabilities to a nuclear level."

Perry's eyes widened in horror. _Nuclear capabilities? _It was one thing if the top floor of D.E.I. got trashed, but this thing could destroy all of Danville!

Without further ado, Perry sprinted to the machine and began to attempt to push it away, shoving the thing with all his might. However, he wasn't tall enough to effectively push the machine any further than a few centimeters at a time. Doofenshmirtz sighed.

"Yeah, I see you don't like it either," he commented, still trying to free himself. "Lucky it takes forever, huh? So, in the meantime, you think you could maybe, y'know…help me?"

Perry continued to push the Inator, turning around long enough to give his nemesis a quick glare. As if he would help him get up when the fate of the city was at stake, not to mention all their lives and the lives of the citizens as well.

Doofenshmirtz growled angrily. Meanwhile, the scientist he had crashed into had finally regained his bearings and was getting off on his own. He dusted off his lab coat huffily.

"Sorry about that," he said in a disgruntled voice. "You just came out of nowhere…"

"Finally!" exclaimed Doofenshmirtz impatiently. He leapt up, massaging his back as he did so. "Oww! Why'd it take so long just to sit up and get off?" he demanded.

The other evil scientist crossed his arms and stalked off without replying. Doofenshmirtz turned to Perry and scoffed. "Huh. Can you believe that guy? I'm gonna build a Revenge-On-A-Random-Person-Inator sometime and get back at him…"

Suddenly, his thoughts were interrupted by a soft _thump _from the direction of the Inator. When he glanced around to see what had caused it, he saw Perry lying on his face behind it. It seemed that he had fallen over while trying to push the machine, but it was just too heavy, and Perry was just too short. Of course, rather than be sympathetic towards his fallen nemesis, Doofenshmirtz seemed to realize how serious the situation was.

"Oh, right. The self destruct…and the…ohh," he said in understanding. Then his eyes widened in terror. "Oh, no! Now what are we going to do?" he shouted in a panic. Then he noticed the dashboard blinking. "Hang on, maybe I can shut it off…" he tried, but all the machine did was let out a dark puff of smoke and several clouds of steam. However, Doofenshmirtz was not assuaged. "It's still going!" he lamented. Perry gave him a bewildered glance, as if to ask how he could possibly tell that it was still going.

"Oh, _now _you don't hear it. Why before and not now?" Doofenshmirtz complained. "And how come you can pick up a whole De-Evolutionator, but you can't push a Cheat-Inator? Is there some difference?" he remarked in a bemused tone. In response, Perry lifted himself up again, threw a dirty glance at the doctor, and resumed pushing at the Inator. When that proved fruitless, he stopped and began to pant heavily, hat askew and tail hanging limply. He fell to his knees in exhaustion and waited for a moment.

This only seemed to further agitate Doofenshmirtz. "Well, I'm out of here," he said, preparing to run. And he dashed away into the heat of the party, not even stopping to look back at his nemesis. However, halfway through his escape, he halted in his tracks, remembering the mystery Inator. Maybe if Perry the Platypus attracted enough attention, he wouldn't have to use the Cheat-Inator at all…and although he hadn't thought of it before, this was the perfect opportunity to distract his secret agent nemesis and finally win for once. Suddenly acquiring a dastardly grin, Doofenshmirtz sprinted off in a different direction, relying entirely on the hope that he could find the mystery Inator soon.

Meanwhile, Perry hadn't given up. For the moment, he was recovering. But when he looked back up, there was a new resolve gleaming in his eyes. If he couldn't get the Inator out, he'd just have to defuse it right then. And it couldn't wait another moment.

Perry leapt to his feet and ripped part of the outer metal off, releasing a huge cloud of smoke, which he ignored, and revealing a mess of wires that he assumed was the control panel. As the smoke billowed out into the party, obscuring everyone's vision and causing general confusion, Perry pressed a hidden button on his hat. Part of the fabric slid aside to reveal a tiny fan, which began to spin and clear the fog around Perry. He then set to work defusing the Inator, pulling some wires out and snipping others with a pair of scissors he produced from behind his back. The other evil scientists suddenly seemed to become aware of his presence, although their reactions weren't exactly good. A few shouted in panic about the fact that there was an animal agent in their midst, while other criticized them for not noticing earlier (not that they themselves had either). Perry ignored it all and continued to work tirelessly, knowing he had precious little time to waste. Even if it was only several dozen evil scientists' lives at stake, they were still (currently) innocent lives, and it was his duty to save them. He only wished he knew what one of them was doing…

At another part of the club, Doofenshmirtz was tearing through the confusion caused by the smoke and fog his Inator had created. People had started to notice Perry already, and he was making sure to use that to his advantage. Soon, he had located the mystery Inator, which was stored in yet another back room, and he was about to go in and steal it when a familiar bald scientist stopped him in his tracks.

"Hello, Doofenshmirtz," greeted Rodney deviously. "Fancy meeting you here."

"Ah, Rodney," Doofenshmirtz acknowledged sourly. "Yeah, it's nice to see you too. Do you think you can move now…?"

But Rodney wasn't about to back off. "Heinz, is that your nemesis over there?" he queried. "You never introduce us. Why didn't you say he was here?"

Doofenshmirtz growled, losing his patience quickly. "Look, Rodney, I _really _need to get through right now. If you could just move out of my way…"

Rodney grinned, seemingly enjoying the torture he was putting his rival through. "What did you say his name was again? Terry the something or other…?"

"It's Perry the Platypus, and I'm too busy to talk about him!" Doofenshmirtz snapped angrily, pushing past Rodney to get to the back room.

Rodney huffed angrily. "Nobody talks to my hand that way!"

Doofenshmirtz turned in his tracks to reply. "I'm not talking to your hand," he stated in an irritated tone. "…I'm talking to the rest of you."

And he shut the door behind himself without a second backward glance, feeling satisfied.

Rodney scoffed in irritation and left in a huff.

Doofenshmirtz glanced around the back room, searching for the mystery Inator. Luckily for him, he didn't have to look for long. There, sitting innocently on a table, was the device that he was certain would turn out to be a weapon of mass hysteria. He grinned greedily and advanced on the humble-looking ray gun.

With this thing in his possession, the Tri-State Area might as well just give up.

Elsewhere, Perry had nearly completed his task of defusing the Inator. The wiring had been difficult to figure out, and the escalating hysteria and fog had been distracting, but he was sure he had found just the right wire to snip this time. Clicking the scissors in a slightly cliché manner once, he reached for a thick blue wire, lodged underneath a few yellow and green ones. He carefully pushed the other wires aside and leaned in dangerously to reach the blue one, feet nearly leaving the floor as he stretched his tiny body to get the scissors in position. Finally reaching the wire, there was a tiny _snip _as he cut it, and an excruciating moment of silence as he waited to see whether it had worked.

But just then, there came a jarring yell from across the room. "Mine! HAHAHAHA!" Perry gave a start and tipped just a little too far, falling right into the mess of wires. Quickly recovering, he poked his head out to see just where the shout had come from, eyes snapping to Doofenshmirtz as he held the mystery Inator up in ultimate triumph.

"All mine, and there's nothing you can do, Perry the toast-a-pus!" he shouted, grinning contemptuously at Perry from his entanglement in the wires. "See you in the next life!"

And he charged straight out of the club, using the steadily thinning fog as cover for his escape and knocking a few people aside on the way. Perry let out a low growl and struggled to escape the wires, fearing that the Inator would self destruct. However, there was suddenly a low whirring noise, and the machine's lights ceased to blink as they had a moment before. Perry relaxed for a moment and breathed a sigh of relief- he was safe.

But the mystery Inator wasn't.

Realizing that the fate of the Tri-State Area could possibly be at stake, Perry untangled himself from the wires as quickly as possible and leapt out of the Inator, leaving the stunned crowd of evil scientists behind as he pursued his nemesis.

As he dashed off, Rodney emerged from the crowd and shook his fist. "No fair, Heinz!" he shouted to no one in particular. "Your nemesis just left and you never introduced us!"

Perry dashed out of the evil club and into the parking lot, pulling his hat down over his eyes to shield them from the blindingly bright sun. Squinting through the haze of sunshine that obscured his vision, he searched the parking lot for his absent enemy- but he was nowhere to be found. Panic began to cloud Perry's thoughts. What if he had already gotten back to Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated and was putting the mystery device to use? What if it was some sort of Doomsday-Inator that was capable of destroying the entire Tri-State Area- or, even worse, the world?

Just as these horrific thoughts were chasing each other around in Perry's mind, his spy watch let out a loud _BEEP! _and jerked him out of his reverie. He mentally groaned and reached for the watch to turn it on, ready to report that he had basically failed.

However, when Major Monogram appeared on the screen, he actually looked pleased. "Good work, Agent P," he announced with a salute. Perry saluted back, but a bewildered and quizzical expression had washed over his features. The Major waved it away.

"It's okay, Agent P. We know Doofenshmirtz got away, but that doesn't matter."

Now Perry was truly confused. Well, did the fate of the world matter, then?

But Monogram wasn't finished. "We've done some research on the raffle prize he was trying to win, and it isn't all that it seems. Take a look; we're sending you the information now." And a page of information promptly appeared on the watch screen. Perry read through it with steadily widening eyes, then smiled briefly and switched the watch off. Yes, the fate of the world mattered, but it was hardly a factor in this situation. Let Doofenshmirtz try out his new Inator; the worst that could happen was if it blew up.

And with a confident smile, Perry whistled for his car, which drove itself up from the depths of the parking lot, and hopped in. Going home would feel especially good today, as long as the boys weren't playing any particularly loud music.


	5. A Smoothie Move

Meanwhile, Mom was patiently making her way through traffic when a sudden thought struck her- Candace had only called once today, and it hadn't been particularly urgent. She sat back in the driver's seat for a moment, wearing a bemused expression. Since when had things ever been so quiet?

Just as these thoughts were passing through her mind, there was a sharp _beep _from her cell phone. Sighing at the feeling that things were definitely back to normal, she reached down to press a button on the phone and raised it to her ear; traffic was moving about an inch an hour anyway.

"Hello?" she said calmly, expecting Candace's high, frantic voice to answer that she had to come home right now to see what the boys were doing. Instead, Phineas' replied.

"Hi, Mom! It's Phineas!" he chirped happily. "You gotta come see what we're doing. It's super cool!"

"Oh, hi, Phineas," said Mom in a surprised but pleased tone, smiling at the sound of Phineas' excited voice. "So what is it that you and Ferb are doing?"

"Can't tell right now," Phineas replied. "We made it for Candace! I hope she'll like it."

"I'm sure she will, dear," Mom assured him, secretly concerned that Candace wouldn't.

Phineas seemed to get even more excited over that. "Yeah, I can't wait for that. Anyway, you gotta come home quick! Right, Ferb?"

On the other end, there was a quiet _ding_.

Mom laughed. "All right, boys, I'll see you when I get home."

"Okay, see you then."

And she hung up, returning to the wheel with a content sigh. At least Candace hadn't felt the need to call and shout about some ridiculous stunt the boys were pulling.

Back at home, Phineas and Ferb had completed their masterpiece and were just waiting for Mom to come home so they could show it to Candace. At the moment, Phineas was double-checking everything to make sure it was all perfect.

"Lawn chair…check," Phineas said. Ferb checked that off on a clipboard.

"Favorite smoothie flavor…check-a-roo," said Phineas. Ferb made a check.

"Ultra UVA protection sunscreen…check-a-dee-doo-dah," said Phineas with a laugh.

Ferb checked that off too.

"And, finally, super-comfortable Hollywood sunglasses," said Phineas happily.

"Check," Ferb finished for him.

"And that should do it!" Phineas announced happily, smiling hugely at his brother, who gave his own slight smile back. "I wonder if Mom's home yet?"

Just then, Mom's car drove into the garage. Phineas looked pleasantly surprised.

"Well, that was serendipitous," he stated. "Okay, let's go get Candace." And they both took off for their sister's room, hardly able to contain their childlike excitement.

Mom had almost finished putting the groceries away when there was a loud noise from upstairs; the sound of many running feet. She sighed. That was probably the boys harassing Candace, or perhaps the other way around. She fully expected her daughter to come bursting down the steps, shouting about some ridiculous thing that the boys were doing. She didn't expect the boys to come running down instead.

"Mom!" Phineas yelled as the door swung open swiftly. Behind him stood Ferb, and, holding Ferb's hand and looking as if she'd been dragged downstairs, Candace.

"Oh, hi, kids," said Mom pleasantly.

"Hi, Mom!" exclaimed Phineas, excitement shining in his eyes. "Can you come outside?"

"Yes, I suppose," said Mom, letting her son grab her hand and drag her off to the backyard. "So what's this all about, Candace?"

"I don't know," said Candace, being pulled along by Ferb. "They won't tell me."

Mom laughed a bit. "Well, this is odd."

"Tell me about it," Candace agreed.

When they had reached the backyard, Phineas pulled the door open with his free hand, and then moved aside so Candace could go out. "Your paradise awaits," he announced in a grand tone, gesturing to the door with a sweeping motion.

Candace raised an eyebrow, but when even Ferb began to push her toward the door gently, she stepped out into the backyard. What she saw made her gasp.

The boys had laid out the lawn chair in a patch of sunlight, draped a few towels across it, and set up a table with a tall smoothie sitting on it. Beside the smoothie, there was a bottle of sunscreen that looked homemade (and knowing the boys, it probably was), and a pair of dark, Hollywood-style sunglasses. Candace was stunned; was it for her?

"Behold!" said Phineas as he led the others outside. "Your very own at-home vacation!"

"Oh, that's so cute," commented Mom, putting a hand on each of the boys' shoulders affectionately. "Isn't that nice of them, Candace?"

Candace's expression appeared to be a mix of excitement, shock, and a flattered smile that could only mean she liked it. She turned to the boys with sparkling eyes.

"You guys did all this for me?" she asked softly. Phineas grinned.

"Of course!" he confirmed. "You are our sister, after all, and we love you."

Candace smiled in a touched way, then hugged both of them gratefully. "You guys are the best!" she said. "And I love you too."

Then she glanced up at Mom, who smiled back. "At least you got to see this one."

As all this was going on, Perry wandered in through the back gate, eyes unfocused as usual and looking distinctly tired. Mom noticed him and reached down to give him a pat.

"Well, look who's home," she said.

Candace released the boys, and Phineas looked down at his pet happily. "Oh, there you are, Perry," he said. Perry chirped nonchalantly in response.

"Come on, boy," he replied, taking the platypus into his arms and heading back inside. "Let's not bother Candace. She needs a little relaxation right now."

Perry snuggled down in Phineas' arms, thinking he could use a little relaxation himself.

Outside, Mom turned to Candace with a pleased smile. "Wasn't that cute?"

Candace didn't hesitate to smile back. "Yes," she answered. "Yes, it was."

And without a word, she slipped the sunglasses on, leaned back in the lawn chair, and took a sip from the smoothie. This was going to be the best at-home vacation ever.

Elsewhere, at a certain purple, funny-shaped building…

"Finally!" exclaimed Dr. Doofenshmirtz as he placed the stolen Inator on an experiment table. "Now we will see just how powerful this mystery Inator is, and the Tri-State Area will be mine at last!" He cackled loudly in triumph, knowing that nothing could stop him.

Eagerly, he lifted the device high and rested a finger on the trigger, finally pulling it with a dramatic burst of laughter. The Inator let out a loud whirring noise and lights all over it began to flash wildly. A point of light began to build on the tip of the gun, and there was a huge flash. When the light cleared, nothing appeared to have happened. Then, the bottom part of the Inator opened up like a hatch, and a brown, oval shaped lump tumbled out of it, landing with a loud _THUMP _on the table.

Doofenshmirtz's eyes widened in confusion. "A potato?" he asked. But he was cut off by another buzzing noise, as the tip of the Inator suddenly opened up and released a small potato peeler and a pair of mechanical clampers, which proceeded to peel the potato neatly and dump the peelings in the trash. Then the whole thing receded back into the body of the Inator, leaving no trace of it having done anything.

Doofenshmirtz stared at the thing, mouth agape in vexation. Eyes narrowing in anger, he threw the machine to the ground and shook his fist in the air.

"CURSE YOU, INADEQUATE RAFFLE PRIZE!"

**FIN**


End file.
